George W. Bush gave a speech last Thursday at “The Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World” event in New York City. Politico called it a speech on Trumpism, but they were perhaps a bit hasty with their definition. But then, any opportunity to accuse Trump of designated awfulness, is the goal of the current news media. I had admired George Bush for his ability to avoid speaking out on politics as a past president, especially in not commenting on Obama who had canceled all his executive orders, which must be galling. I know it’s hard, but we really don’t want to hear from past presidents or past candidates. Their time is past.

We’re having some trouble with definitions, and throwing way too many “isms” around: nationalism and nativism, for example. The Left, big on wide open borders, prefers to define nativism something evil, as if favoring your own citizens over illegal immigrants is reprehensible? Look up the definition of nativism. Other troublesome words are bigotry, prejudice, civility and incivility, and immigrant and migrant. ABC recently called illegal aliens (illegal: not according to law, alien: owing allegiance to some other nation) to avoid using such negative language, “undocumented citizens.” No, they’re not.

We are living in a time when the difference between undocumented citizens, immigrants and migrants is increasingly important. Europe, because of their cradle-to-grave social welfare benefits, has a declining birthrate. Because they have a declining birthrate, without enough young people working to pay for the cradle-to-grave social welfare benefits they so generously offered in order to get elected, they thought by inviting more immigrants to work and pay for the benefits, they could still prosper. “Poor” Americans have more living space than ordinary Europeans who are not poor. And more amenities.

The inviting immigrants in was a mistake for Europeans. They were feeling sorry for those in Middle Eastern refugee camps, and the well-meant invitation quickly became a flow of migrants from every hell-hole on the planet, and many ordinary countries that just didn’t have the presumed wealth of Europe.

Charles Hill explained how modernity went astray, based on a system that made room for wide cultural diversity based on a judicial doctrine of “the equality of states.” (Do read Hill’s whole piece linked just above. It’s not long.)

The EU would become a new form of trans-national entity that would eschew war, abolish sovereign borders, exalt diplomacy, and supersede the Westphalian system by offering the world a compelling model of how to dismantle the state by devolving some of its powers downward according to the concept of “subsidiarity” while pulling other powers up into a pan-European bureaucracy in Brussels which, however defined, would not be a state. The EU assured that it was entirely un-religious and noted the care with which the text of its voluminous constitution – unratified – avoided any reference to Europe’s Christian heritage.

Put simply, the EU made itself the epitome of the Modern Age by relentless secularization. Islamism, emerging from the post-World War I collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Caliphate, made itself the vanguard of jihadist religion’s rise to become the implacable adversary of modernity. If Europe is where the siege is to take place, the drawbridge already is up:

Ambassador Hill adds: “Transatlantic unity has been the keystone of the defense and extension of freedom in wartime for a hundred years and must remain so.”

It is not the EU but NATO that has been the key to transatlantic solidarity. Strengthening NATO as a military alliance with political consequences in support of a reformed EU must be at the core of American policy. NATO’s role “out of area” will be vital along with continued efforts to integrate like-minded partners to the extent possible: Russia, Israel, the Gulf Arab states. The Modern Age itself is at stake.

There are very few things that are better done by a large central bureaucracy, that is why folks on the right speak about “draining the swamp.” Bureaucrats don’t like to give up power, and, convinced of their own wisdom, usually fight any effort for reform. In particular, the federal bureaucracy cannot do health care, The case of the Veterans Administration is only the most visible failure.The Indian Health Service is reportedly a disaster. Medicaid promises much but few physicians are willing to see Medicaid patients. Medicare has always been a Ponzi scheme, and as the Baby Boomers are rapidly reaching retirement age, there are not enough members of the Baby Bust to support them. Medicare is due to go broke in short order.

Annoyance or Last Straw? The federal government employs 2.1 million civilian workers in an uncountable (new ones pop up all the time) number of agencies or offices across the nation. “This federal workforce imposes a substantial burden on American taxpayers.” says the CATO Institute. “In 2015 wages and benefits for executive branch civilian workers will cost more than $260 billion,”

Since the 1990s, federal workers have enjoyed faster compensation growth than private-sector workers. In 2014 federal workers earned 78 percent more, on average, than private-sector workers. Federal workers earned 43 percent more, on average, than state and local government workers. The federal government has become an elite island of secure and high-paid employment, separated from the ocean of average Americans competing in the economy.

After the “Worst recession since the Great Depression” as Obama always claims for his excuse, after more than six years of economic “recovery,” the middle class is worse off than at the end of the Great Recession in 2009. The number of working age people not in the workforce is over 92,000,000.

In 2014 federal civilian workers had an average wage of $84,153, according the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). By comparison, the average wage for the nation’s 111 million private-sector workers was $56,350. …

The BEA data can be broken down by industry. Among 21 major sectors that span the U.S. economy, the federal government has the fourth highest paid workers after only utilities, mining, and management of companies.6 Federal compensation is higher, on average, than compensation in the information industry, finance and insurance, and professional and scientific industries.

The federal government has the fourth highest paid workers after only utilities, mining, and company management. Federal compensation is higher on average than compensation in the information industry, finance and insurance, and professional and scientific industries.

Rising federal compensation stems from legislated increases in general pay, increases in locality pay, expansions in benefits, and growth in the number of high-paid jobs as bureaucracies become more top-heavy. Compensation growth is also fueled by routine adjustments that move federal workers into higher salary brackets regardless of performance, and by federal jobs that are redefined upward into higher pay ranges.

The little dip in the blue line of rising federal wages is the recent partial pay freeze. The chart above includes benefits such as health care and pensions, which makes the advantage over private sector workers even larger. The level of compensation does not represent the nation’s highest skilled workers, but the security of working for the government. (The quit rate for the federal government is ¼ of the rate for the private sector. Security and generous benefits.)

The benefits package is overly generous. Jobs should be privatized wherever possible. It is the nature of a bureaucracy to grow. Congress has shoved way too much of the task of lawmaking off to federal agencies — easy example: the sloppy designation of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act (congressmen weren’t sure what they meant so they left it to the EPA and other agencies to figure it out, This has resulted in a power grab perhaps unrivaled in the history of bureaucracies.) And there is SEIU, the Service Employees International Union. If you can manage the time, do read the whole thing. It should affect your vote.

A year ago, the Veterans Administration scandal broke. Wait times were extreme, vets got sicker or died waiting for appointments for care. The VA was covering up, cooking the books and hiding their lack of performance. President Obama was outraged and pledged “urgent reforms.” Congress gave him billions to fix the problem. Would you be surprised to find that nothing has changed. Nothing at all.

On April 9, 2014, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs announced its findings that several veterans have died waiting for treatment at the Phoenix VA Health Care System, and the organization had kept two sets of books to conceal the problems. The scandal spread, it became clear that other VA facilities were involved, and attempts to hide the problems multiplied. By August, the head of the VA was dismissed, and Congress wrote a $16.3 billion bill to fix the disgraceful problem.

Obama quickly signed the bill into law, and spoke of how his administration was” moving ahead with urgent reforms’ and “instituting a critical culture of accountability. They were, he said getting 215,000 vets off wait lists, and the new law would let vets who could not get timely care through the VA get the care they need someplace else.

The press, and Obama moved on to more interesting things. But the Associated Press decided to follow up and see how much things had improved.They haven’t. 894,000 medical appointments completed between Aug. 1 and Feb. 28 failed to meet the VA’s timeliness goal which calls for patients to be seen within 30 days. The number of vets waiting more than 30 or 60 days for non-emergency care has stayed flat. The number of appointments that take longer than 90 days has nearly doubled.

Most were clustered at VA facilities in a handful of Southern states where there is a strong military presence, and growth in numbers of patients that has outpaced the bureaucratic planning process. Of the 75 clinics and hospitals with the highest percentage of patients waiting more than 30 days for care,12 are in Tennessee or Kentucky, 11 are in eastern North Carolina and the Hampton Roads of Virginia and Georgia, Southern Alabama and north Florida. Total enrollees have grown from 6.8 million in 2002 to 8.9 million in 2013.

This is how bureaucracies work, especially government bureaucracies. Somebody has to be in charge with the authority to make things happen. There are rules and regulations that must be followed at every step,and approvals from layers of supervisors, who are also obligated to follow the rules. That’s just for doing things. If you are building a new clinic or expanding or remodeling an old one, it can take years.

Confronted with this kind of situation, the Left usually wants to add another layer of supervisory control to take charge and speed things up. That’s what created the problems in the first place. Somebody up the line made a decision about what was a reasonable time for a vet to wait for an appointment for care, and did not ask the facilities if they could meet that timing. They couldn’t, and didn’t want t admit it and get fired, so they covered up, and of course the cover-up didn’t fix anything and matters only grew worse. Republicans want smaller government, partly because multiple layers of supervision only make things worse, because nobody is in charge with the ability to make things happen.

That goes for Presidents too. Mr. Obama fired General Shinseki and appointed Robert McDonald as the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He signed the $16.5 billion bill, made a lot of promises, but follow up was limited to a speech at the American Legion a few weeks after signing the bill. He said “We are going to fix what is wrong. We’re going to what is right by you.” Long wait time.

The image at center top is the remains of a PopTart after 7-year-old Josh tried to chew it into the shape of a mountain, just for fun, at Park Elementary School in the Baltimore area. His teacher spotted it, with tiny bits of red strawberry filling oozing out, and recognized it instantly as a dangerous weapon.

Josh’s dad was surprised to receive a telephone call from the school saying that Josh had been suspended from school for two days because he chewed his breakfast pastry into — the shape of a gun? He was astounded at the harsh punishment for his seven-year-old.

The school made sure that counseling is available for any students traumatized by the frightening toaster strudel ordeal.

The school sent home a letter to parents saying, “During breakfast this morning, one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class. While no physical threats were made and no one was harmed, the student had to be removed from the classroom.”

Parents should talk to their children if they’re troubled by the incident, the school said, and the school counselor will be available for any student who needs to talk.

If any students were traumatized, it was probably from observing that their teacher and their principal were stark raving loons, and in charge of their destiny.

The letter that went home with students described the incident:

Dear Parents and Guardians:

I am writing to let you know about an incident that occurred this morning in one of our classrooms and encourage you to discuss this matter with your child in a manner you deem most appropriate.

During breakfast this morning, one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class. While no physical threats were made and no one [was] harmed, the student had to be removed from the classroom.

As you are aware, the … Code of Student Conduct and appropriate consequences related to violations of the code are clearly spelled out in the Student Handbook, which was sent home during the first week of school and can be found on our website, http://www.aacps.org….

If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week. In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.

Economist Daniel Mitchell is appalled by these examples of behavior by adults who work in government schools. He offers these contestants for the Stupid Official of the Year Award:

A dual award in Virginia, with half the prize for the bureaucrats who suspended a 10-year old boy for a toy gun and half the prize for the cops who then arrested the kid.

ADDENDUM: From Instapundit today:

IT’S COME TO THIS: ‘Toaster Pastry Gun Freedom Act’ proposed in Maryland. “A Maryland state senator has crafted a bill to curb the zeal of public school officials who are tempted to suspend students as young as kindergarten for having things — or talking about things, or eating things — that represent guns, but aren’t actually anything like real guns.”

And I love this: “The bill also includes a section mandating counseling for school officials who fail to distinguish between guns and things that resemble guns.” Seems fair. We’re always told that public education is important because it fosters critical thinking, but critical thinking seems to be in short supply among public educators.

Bureaucracy is alive and at work on the other side of the country. Homeowners in an exclusive waterfront neighborhood in Brooklyn thought it was as bad as it could get when the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy hit. Many have yet to return to their damaged homes. Others have spent thousands repairing the damage to their homes.

The city, obeying a New York state approved capped five-year formula for setting assessment levels has hiked the assessed valuations on their homes significantly. Their property-value notices, pre-dated January 15, didn’t arrive until the first week of February informing homeowners that they had until Feb. 1 to apply for assistance through the Finance Department’s new Hurricane Sandy Property Tax Relief program. Finance Department spokesman Owen Stone said the deadline had been pushed back to Feb. 15, but the program has been in operation since late November.

This is what happens in a bureaucracy. The rules say the houses have appreciated in value. It occurs to no one that that neighborhood was the one they’ve been watching on television with all the storm damage. If damaged home valuations did occur to anyone, who has the authority to order a change to the state mandated appraisal increases? It is all just so complicated, and fines are waiting to be levied on those who don’t respond quickly enough.

One oceanfront home still had its windows and doors boarded up, and the owner has yet to return because the home was so badly damaged by Sandy. Common sense would dictate their property values have fallen, but the city says the home’s market value has jumped by $473,000 during the past year to $3.1 million.

Well, good luck to them all. Spokesman Owen Stone said his agency is reviewing 2,900 applications citywide, and that sounds like it doesn’t include all those folks who just got their notices.

41-year-old Simon Burgess was feeding swans in a shallow pond in Walpole Park in Gosport, England last year when he suffered an epileptic seizure and fell unconscious into the water. Twenty-five emergency personnel arrived on scene but Burgess remained floating face down, twenty-five feet from shore, for over half an hour after the first responders arrived.

Even though they could all swim, the first fire crew to arrive hadn’t been ‘trained’ to enter water higher than ankle-deep. Instead they waited for ‘specialists’ to arrive to retrieve his body. They had decided Mr Burgess must surely be dead because he had been in the water for ten minutes. When a policeman decided to go in anyway, he was ordered not to. A paramedic was also told not to enter the water because he didn’t have the right ‘protective’ clothing and might be in breach of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.

The tragic incident made headlines around the world, held up as a shocking example of ludicrously risk-averse Britain. And it prompted a coroner to demand that fire, police and ambulance services improve training to prevent a repeat.

The paper discovered that:

The ‘ankle-deep’ rule was meant for fast-flowing water and is taken from guidelines drawn up to deal with floods.

Other rescue agencies believe people can survive submerged for much longer than ten minutes – some will still try resuscitation at 90 minutes.

The incident happened despite a previous reassurance from the Health and Safety Executive that firefighters would not face prosecution if they performed acts of heroism that break rules.

Mr Burgess could have been reached within two minutes of emergency crews arriving at the scene – as proved by our reporter who went into the lake and waded 25ft to the spot where his body had been floating.

Political correctness is a blight on western nations. You must not offend anyone, you must obey the rules and regulations down to the last comma. The most remarkable thing is that we don’t seem to know what to do about it. We mostly recognize it as a great mistake, we snort and cluck over the stupidity, but what do we do? Nothing. It infects all bureaucracies, large or small. Human Resource departments are a source and are boosters. It involves “Don’t blame me,” and “It’s not my fault,” and “I followed the rules.”

We need a big dose of taking responsibility. The world does not end if you say “I made a mistake.”